Predictors of positive or negative reactions to learning Alzheimer’s biomarker results

With improved detection of Alzheimer’s disease and biomarker accessibility, more adults with no or mild symptoms may learn their AD biomarker results. Yet, potential psychosocial impact of learning AD biomarkers is not well understood. In a phone survey, we assessed potential reactions after learning about a hypothetical positive AD biomarker result. Data were collected from cognitively healthy participants (n=334, mean age=64.8±7.7) enrolled in longitudinal AD studies. Exploratory factor analysis identified five latent factors following a hypothetical positive biomarker result: advanced care planning, lifestyle changes to reduce dementia risk factors, psychological distress, subjective cognitive complaints, and stigma. Using linear regression, we found that predictors of potential pessimistic reactions (distress, cognitive complaints, stigma) included higher trust in research (Distress:b:0.04, p:0.04), no dementia family history (Stigma:b:-0.30,p:0.04), poorer memory self-rating (Cognitive complaints:b:-0.19,p:0.02), and Black racial identity (Cognitive complaints:b:0.30,p:0.02, Stigma:b:0.40,p:0.003). Predictors of potential optimistic reactions (advanced care planning, lifestyle changes) included more trust in research (Planning:b:0.07,p<0.0001) and Black racial identity (Planning:b:0.38,p:0.003), as well as younger age (Lifestyle:b:-0.02,p:0.02) and belief in AD controllability (Planning:b:0.22,p:0.003, Lifestyle:b:0.23,p:0.002). Concern about developing AD was associated with increased likelihood of all potential reactions. While AD concern associates with optimistic and pessimistic potential reactions, specific factors of family history, racial identity, trust, belief in AD controllability, and memory rating differentially predict each of the potential outcomes of learning AD biomarker results. These findings may help target education efforts to prepare and reduce risk of negative reactions for cognitively healthy adults who learn their AD biomarker results.

‘Becoming Black’

Little is known about racial identity claims of African migrants living in Israel who originate from countries where race is not a dominant identity marker. This article examines how Eritrean migrants, coming from a country where race-based social organisation is not prevalent, strategically adopted ‘Black’ as their identity marker in Israel. Online newspaper reports and conversational interviews with four Eritrean migrants were used as sources of data. During various anti-deportation protests, Eritrean migrants held signs with slogans referring to themselves as Black. Some of the slogans include: ‘Do Black lives matter in Israel?’, ‘Black or White I am human’, ‘Deported to death because I am Black’, and ‘Now I am White, will you deport me?’ I argue that for first generation Eritrean migrants in Israel, Black racial identity was adopted strategically as a political identity of social mobilisation and resistance in the face of a racialised and exclusionary migration policy.

Examining the Relationship Between Black Racial Identity Clusters and Postpartum Depressive Symptoms

Background: This study examined the relationship between racial identity clusters and postpartum depressive symptoms (PPDS) in Black postpartum mothers living in Georgia. Aims: A cross-sectional study design using Cross’s nigrescence theory as a framework was used to explore the relationship between Black racial identity and PPDS. Method: Black mothers were administered online questionnaires via Qualtrics. A total sample of 116 self-identified Black mothers were enrolled in the study. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 41 years ( M = 29.5 ± 5.3) and their infants were 1 to 12 months old ( M = 5.6 ± 3.5). The majority of mothers were married or cohabitating with their partner (71%), had a college degree (53%), and worked full-time (57%). Results: Hierarchical cluster analysis identified six racial identity clusters within the sample: Assimilated and Miseducated, Self-Hating, Anti-White, Multiculturalist, Low Race Salience, and Conflicted. A Kruskal-Wallis H test determined there was no difference in PPDS scores between racial identity clusters. Conclusion: This study is the first to explore the relationship between Black racial identity clusters of postpartum mothers and their mental health. Findings emphasize the complexity of Black racial identity and suggest that the current assessment tools may not adequately detect PPDS in Black mothers. The implications for these findings in nursing practice and future research are discussed.

Identidade racial negra no contexto da produção do Plano Municipal de Educação de Diamantina/MG / Black racial identity in the context of the production of the Municipal Education Plan of Diamantina/MG

O presente artigo tem por objetivo discutir como o tema da identidade racial negra foi apropriado no processo de elaboração do Plano Municipal de Educação de Diamantina/MG (2015-2025). Auscultamos os colaboradores sobre: compreensão do plano de elaboração dessa política; identificação das vozes integrantes; participação do movimento negro; abordagem do tema da identidade racial negra. Pelo exposto, a cena de elaboração do PME de Diamantina/MG configurou-se como um campo político marcado por debates sobre identidades, mas nem todas as vozes tiveram expressão para definir as matrizes da Lei nº 3.880/2015, que aprova o referido plano. Nesse campo de disputas, a identidade racial negra desenhada no processo de tessitura do plano é caudatária da visão colonial, uma vez que a população negra presente no contexto educacional diamantinense ainda não é considerada parte integrante desse processo.

A Child of Destiny or a Nobody without Identity, 1910–1926

This chapter describes Pauli Murray’s childhood. At age three Murray moved from Baltimore to Durham, North Carolina, to live with her maternal relations following her mother’s sudden death. Murray endured another childhood trauma when a white attendant brutally murdered her father while he was confined to Crownsville Asylum for the Negro Insane. Jim Crow segregation created many more hardships and complications for Murray and her maternal family. Murray’s grandmother was descended from slaves and slave owners. Her grandfather fought for the Union in the Civil War. Both grandparents and many of their descendants could pass as white, but still embraced a black racial identity. The family subscribed to black uplift ideology: they prized education and adhered to middle-class values but also demonstrated ‘colorism.’

Biko: Exploring Black Identity in Brazil Through a U.S. Lens

This article analyzes how Black Consciousness and Citizenship (CCN), a curriculum produced at the Steve Biko Cultural Institute (Biko) in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, is influential to the production of a Black identity. In addition, I assess “the relationship between Black identity and education” at Biko through the lens of Zirkel and Johnson’s strengths-based narratives as a counternarrative to anti-Blackness and Afrophobia in Brazilian society. CCN is elevated in analysis as a culturally representative model of education for Afro-Brazilian youth in Salvador and the city’s periphery. Culturally representative education here refers to a racially, culturally, and socially inclusive educational mode. Zirkel and Johnson’s recommended approaches are parallel to those employed through CCN to produce a positive identification with Black racial identity which counters anti-Black and Afrophobic sentiment.

Questioning a Single Narrative: Multiple Identities Shaping Black Queer and Transgender Student Retention

Researchers explore factors that influence retention and persistence of queer and transgender students and examine retention and persistence among Black students. However, there is a dearth of retention and persistence scholarship centering the nuanced experiences of Black queer and transgender college students at the intersections of their gender, racial, and sexual identities. Using the queer of color critique conceptual framework and an anti-Black racism lens, the authors present a systematic literature review to illuminate opportunities for scholars to (a) disrupt singular narratives that erase queer and transgender experiences from Black student retention discourses and (b) address the ways scholars erase Black racial identity from broader queer and transgender student retention research. Centering the case of Joshua, a Black queer cisgender male-identified college student, the authors highlight research, practice, and policy implications that consider social class, institutional type, multilevel intervention strategies, and intersectionality in Black queer and transgender college student retention discourse.

Spencer’s Reply to Glasgow, Haslanger, and Jeffers

Quayshawn Spencer clarifies that his defense of biological racial realism in Chapter 3—which is called “OMB race theory”—is meant to be a part of a larger radically pluralist theory about the nature and reality of race in American English. Next, Spencer defends OMB race theory against the South Asian mismatch objection from Glasgow and Jeffers. Third, Spencer raises an empirical adequacy objection against Glasgow’s, Haslanger’s, and Jeffers’s race theories insofar as they are unable to predict how race and races are talked about in multiple national discussions, such as whether Rachel Dolezal is wrong to claim a Black racial identity and whether Harvard University has been unlawfully discriminating against Asian applicants in undergraduate admissions.

Black people’s racial identity and their acceptance of Black-White Multiracial people

The current study examined whether Black people’s racial ideology, experiences of racism, and their interaction predict their acceptance of Black-White Multiracial people. Black racial ideologies represent an aspect of Black people’s racial identity that addresses their perspectives on how people within the Black community should behave. Participants ( N = 325) were administered a series of measures. Latent class analysis revealed three classes of Black racial identity: undifferentiated (average ideologies), integrationist (high assimilationist, humanist, and oppressed minority), and nationalist (high nationalist). The nationalist group was most likely to endorse rejecting Multiracial people as members of the Black community and also to endorse forcing a Black identity onto Multiracial people, whereas the integrationist group was least likely to make such endorsements. For participants in the nationalist (but not integrationist or undifferentiated) cluster, personal experiences of racism were related to endorsement of forcing a Black identity onto a Multiracial person. Findings suggest that Multiracial people might achieve the most identity affirmation and sense of community among Black people holding integrationist views.